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Monday, January 12, 2015

Mobile Art Monday No.2 -Stackables

Welcome to Mobile Art Monday!
One of my favorite apps ever is Stackables by Samer Azzam. Stackables has graciously provided me with several iTunes codes to give away for iPhone or iPad users. Just leave a comment by Wednesday midnight and I'll be announcing some lucky winners on Thursday!

If you are a texture lover like me this is your app. It’s fabulous on landscapes, still life, flowers and I’ve even used it on portraits. It has the most beautiful textures, gradients, filters, patterns and great adjustments that can all be layered over one another.

When you first open a photo in Stackables it has cropping options. Be ware, if your photo is not square the textures do not resize to fit. So some will be noticeably cut off especially if they have ‘edges’.

The app will automatically apply the first texture, Honey, in the Overlay blend mode at 50%. Scroll down to choose from lots of others. Some are locked until you purchase them. Opacity and saturation are controlled with the slider at the bottom. Each layer has the ability to be rotated, bottom right corner. Let's see what we can do with this fence photo.

Let’s add another texture layer by touching the + layers icon on the lower left. Scroll through the textures to find another that looks good. I chose Soft Clouds.

Touch on Overlay to bring up the 15 other blend modes. I chose Hard Light for this and reduced the opacity.

Be sure to add another layer by touching the + layers icon each time which is what I forgot to do here. But I’ll fix that in a minute. Choose your filter, adjust your opacity and blend mode. Now I’ll add back that texture.

Add a layer, touch back on Textures and re-choose your texture and settings. If you touch and hold on layer three you will be able to move it around in the stacking order.

Add another layer. Click on Gradients. I chose Twilight at Soft Light. If you touch the double arrows at the top corner of the gradient it will change styles from radial to linear. Remember you can rotate any layers too.

The next icon is Patterns. I think you need just the right photo for these to look good. You can also change the scale and color besides the blend mode and opacity.

Next are the Adjustments. It automatically opens the Color adjust which displays 15 different adjustments like contrast, saturation, sharpness, etc. I chose Grain instead and added a bit. I also switched it from dark to light using the double arrow.

I decided to turn off the visibility of the pattern layer 5. Touch the Eyeball on the layer to toggle it on and off.

It needed another layer to boost brightness and contrast.

Then I added one more texture layer, saved my formula, and saved to camera roll.

The last icon at the top is provided formulas and the ones you have saved.

It has some formulas already made up that you can apply or you can save your own formulas and reuse them. Once you’ve ‘applied’ a formula you can edit every layer by touching the wrench in the lower right. The provided formulas can be a very interesting starting point or may work perfectly for the right photo.

I chose one of my previously saved formulas for my finished photo!

Here's another using that same formula. My background was nearly white so you have a good idea of the colors in the textures.

Here it is with a different edit.

Leave a comment by Wednesday midnight for a chance to win a code for a free iTunes download for Stackables. Include a link to your mobile edits if you'd like some visitors to your blog or Instagram feed. You can check out my Instagram feed here.